Hamels, Beltre lead way, put hurt on Mariners

At one point Saturday night, it seemed as if manager Lloyd McClendon was planning to use all 11 relievers in the bloated Seattle Mariners bullpen.

All the while, as the Texas Rangers kept piling up runs, left-hander Cole Hamels sat and waited, then quickly did his thing and went back to the dugout to wait as the Rangers scored some more.

And, at some point, he probably wondered how the heck Adrian Beltre could keep collecting hits with a brace on his left index finger.

Hamels and Beltre were the stars of the Rangers’ 10-1 victory. Hamels struck out 12 in seven innings, and Beltre had hits in his first three at-bats and drove in three runs with a jammed left index finger.

Both made it look easy, though, especially in Beltre’s case, it wasn’t.

“I don’t know if I have enough superlatives in my vocabulary to explain Adrian Beltre,” manager Jeff Banister said. “I just know that he is the toughest player I’ve ever been around to go out and do what he does every day.”

The three hits and a walk by Beltre through six innings gave him a career-best streak of 10 consecutive plate appearances reaching base. He did so despite playing with his finger wrapped and receiving treatment before the game for a finger he jammed diving into third base Friday night.

He suffered a torn ligament in his left thumb May 31 and was on the disabled list for only three weeks.

Hamels struck out 12, his highest total since joining the Rangers, and allowed one run on seven hits. The one run came to start the second on a homer by Franklin Gutierrez after Mike Napoli had plated the game’s first run with an RBI single off Vidal Nuno.

Nuno allowed only one Rangers hit in seven scoreless innings Sept. 9, but the Rangers had three in the first. Though they had only five hits against him in 3  1/3 innings, the Rangers took advantage of four walks and a Nuno error in a two-run second.

After the Rangers loaded the bases against Nuno in the fourth, Beltre ripped a double off the center-field wall off JC Ramirez to make it 5-1. Beltre added an RBI single to cap a three-run fifth that included an RBI double by Gimenez and an RBI triple by Delino DeShields.

“I think we need to keep doing stuff to his hand,” shortstop Elvis Andrus said. “Every time that happens he keeps hitting better and better. That’s the way he is. He loves to play with pain. Actually, if he’s not playing with pain, he doesn’t play good. Really glad he has some pain right now.”

Hamels (4-1 with the Rangers, 10-8 overall) wasn’t bothered by the lengthy delays as Seattle used seven relievers. He worked out of some trouble in the third and survived a lengthy at-bat with Kyle Seager to strand two in the seventh and finish at 113 pitches.

The Seager battle ended in a strikeout, making Hamels the first Rangers pitcher other than Yu Darvish to strike out 12 in a game since Colby Lewis did it in 2012. Hamels has nine 10-strikeout games in his career and three this season, including a season-high 13 in his June 25 no-hitter.

“I was able to threw all my pitches for strikes at any time,” said Hamels, whose career high in strikeouts is 15. “Chris and I had a really good game plan, and it was all about executing pitches. I think I was able to execute more pitches than not. The past couple of games I’ve had against them I have those few innings where I’ve left pitches up and not gotten away with anything.”

He is likely to surpass 200 innings and 200 strikeouts before the season ends.

“The job is to go out there and win every game,” Hamels said. “We’ve been fortunate to be able to do it when I’ve been playing. Feeling good and healthy and strong and confident is what you want to be able to do at this time. You want to be able to keep rolling every five days. We’re able to feed off of each other. That’s been the exciting part.”

This story was originally published September 19, 2015 at 11:40 PM with the headline "Hamels, Beltre lead way, put hurt on Mariners."